


What's In a Dream

by gidgetxzim



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (Comics), The Walking Dead (TV), The Walking Dead (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Zombie Apocalypse, Anxiety, Depression, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M for now, M/M, Morning Sickness, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, glacial, i'll balance it out, idk - Freeform, idk yet, maybe more angst then i thought, not yet?, nothing too crazy, pov change cus their all special little snow flakes, some smut, tags subjected to change, talking about a miscarriage, teenage father, will edit back and forth as i go so look out for that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 07:55:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6110100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gidgetxzim/pseuds/gidgetxzim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rick, a young man who had to get his priorities in order after finding out he was going to be a father, grows up to become a cop struggling to juggle his job, time with his kid, and the rules of joint custody, while falling harder everyday for the two people who saved him from himself. Michonne, an ex-lawyer who thought she finally lost it all the day her boyfriend left her, falls in love with two idiots who needed her strength and guidance in order to remember what its like to live. Daryl, a wanderer lost to the world the day his father first laid his hands on him, haunted by his past and plagued by his present, a man who never knew what love was until he met them. Little did they know that finding each other would only be the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's In a Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Idk what I'm doing. I'm in my senior year of college, last semester and here I fucking am. This show, the comics, and all the games have ruined my life. No beta, but re-read ad nauseam, thanks.

  
  


_In the begging he had nothing._

  


It all started on a Sunday night. Rick was lying in his bed in his usual pajamas, boxers and a t-shirt, sock clad feet tangled up in his dark blue comforter, pre-calculous textbook carelessly opened to the reading he should have done Thursday on functions. He was in his last year of high school and senioritis was kicking in hard this semester and he was pretty fucking over all his required courses. All filler classes he didn’t really need but would help him get some credits out of the way when he got to college. Rick could barely wrap his head around what homework he needed to have done for tomorrow, the thought of college, of his _future_ , had his stomach twisting in all the wrong ways.

Procrastination was safe, familiar. It’s what kept the cloying grasp of the future at bay, it’s fed him the control to stare into his mother and fathers eyes and slip pretty little lies their way when they sat him down and forced him into conversations about life after his impending graduation. Conversations about how he should be planning, and thinking about schools to choose from. Rick could hear his mother's light twang, _“Sweetie, have you been taking a look at the college brochures your counselor gave you? Have you thought about your major yet? If you go to St. Western you can get into their medical program, maybe you could find your way into becoming a doctor, get a nice job at Harrison Memorial, all close to home, oh honey wouldn’t that be fantastic!”_ Then there’s his father’s gruff drawl, _“What you need to be doing is looking at scholarships son, you don’t wanna be like old McMillon’s kid. Boy got his family drowning in debt, just drowning in it. And for what? Dropped out after a year.”_ Then his father _tsked_ , head shaking in commiseration for Mr. McMillon’s plight. _“Poor guy, saw him down on Hudson trying to load up an old freighter. Fella looked ready to drop.”_

Through some tough negotiating and a lot of groveling on Rick’s part, he was able to get another week before his parents would crack the whip and force their own choices for his life onto him.

When the conversation was finally over, Rick’s mother walked away looking sad but not defeated, his father stood from the kitchen table and made sure Rick was looking straight into his eyes when he said, _“I don’t know what’s gotten into you but damn it Ricky you have got to start taking this seriously. This is your life we’re talking about son. The decisions you make now, both the good and the bad, may seem minor now but in a month, maybe a year, hell a decade, you'll look back to this moment and see how something so infinitesimal changed everything. There are no take backs.”_

To tell the truth, Rick didn’t understand why he wasn’t taking his life more seriously either. 

Then there was Lori.

Rick sighed and rolled onto his back, arm slung over his eyes as he tried to push away all the heavy shit clouding his head, but all he could see now was Lori. Sweet, innocent Lori Connor. With her long, wavy chestnut hair that he’d gently untangle with his fingers whenever she laid her head on his chest, and those watery grey eyes that saw straight through his own blue orbs and right into the core of him. Last time he saw her she wouldn’t speak to him when he came up to talk to her after cheerleading practice on Friday. She walked straight to her dad’s old Chevy, red and white uniform still on her slim frame, ignoring his pleas for her to at least say _something_ , before she started it up, and drove out of the school parking lot. Shane saw the whole awkward thing, he gave out a low whistle and a, _“Chicks man, don’t let her get to you,”_ before he patted Rick’s back and walked off to go grab his football gear from his locker. 

Shane was actually the one that convinced Rick into going for it with Lori in the first place two long years ago. They were in the library screwing around during a free period when all of sudden Shane slid up next to Rick and began to whisper, _“Hey, see that pretty little brunette over there? She been eyein’ you up for the last 20 minutes. Every time we in here somehow so is she. It’s been like two weeks of this shit brother, either you go for it or you let her down easy, I can’t take this elementary school foreplay no more.”_

And a few days later Rick finally went for it. The smile she graced him with that day shinned a holy light unto his little world so bright he thought he’d go blind. It was the best year of his life. It was nothing but laughter and innocent dates around town. Rick was the proper southern gentlemen his mama raised him to be, he treated Lori like a queen. He even remembered how her birthday was in April and saved up the money he got from his pseudo part-time job/internship down at his mom’s office to buy her a thin silver necklace with a simple circular charm with a filigree flower engraved on one side and their initials engraved on the other. When he showed his parents the gift his mother gushed over how romantic it was while his daddy teased him about it for a good week. 

Rick wasn’t able to give Lori her necklace on the day of her birthday since she had to spend it with her family up at her grandparent’s house. Lori came from a long line of posh country folk like Rick, but unlike his family, who gave up the pomp and circumstance a long time ago, hers still kept in touch with the more rigid, aristocratic way of things. They were going to make a whole big thing about it and at the time Rick was pretty glad Lori didn’t force him to join them.

Instead Rick decided to surprise Lori and pick her up before school since he knew she’d been studying that whole night for a chemistry midterm that next day. When Rick pulled up in front of Lori’s house that morning he waited in his daddies old gunmetal grey 1970 Dodge Charger as he watched Lori step out of her house juggling her keys and her textbook, book bag hanging precariously off her shoulder before she hiked it up in order to properly lock her front door. She looked frazzled with her dark hair up in a messy bun, wispy pieces coming out of her loose hair tie. Black leggings accentuating her long legs, feet clad in ratty old sneakers, and it looked like she somehow got a hold of one of his school sweatshirts. It was thick, grey, and about two sizes too big for her, school logo running across her chest as it hung just past her knees and off her shoulder. She looked _messy_ , she looked _normal_ , she looked _beautiful_. Rick loved that side of Lori, the Lori who dressed like a teenager and drooled on his shoulder during a special viewing of the _Star Wars_ trilogy he dragged her to, the Lori who could stuff her face full of fries and then beat his ass at _Pac-Man_ , the Lori whose kisses left him hard and panting during the gap he had in-between his last class and baseball practice.

Rick couldn’t stand when she had to pour herself into that shallow debutant mold her mother built for her. Befriending girls who would never look twice at people whose families didn’t come from royal southern blood. Boys born with silver spoons in their mouths but heads as empty as their icy hearts. Spoiled children who never worked a hard day in their lives, who families gave huge donations to charities they had never heard of just to help cultivate the perfect public image. If Lori really wanted that type of life, if those people were really her friends, Rick would bite his tongue and let her go for it. Who was he to step in the way of familial obligations?

That was the thing though, Lori didn’t care about those assholes. Lori’s real problem was that she cared too much about what they _thought_ and what their parents thought, and most importantly, what her mother would think if she knew her sweet southern belle would rather eat glass then spend another second at afternoon tea with those wealthy vipers down at the Cynthiana Country Club.

What really made Rick’s heart beat wildly in his chest that day, made him think that Lori was going to be _the one_ for him, was the way she looked at him the moment she turned and saw his car idling on her street. When their eyes met, the tired slump in Lori’s posture disappeared, her eyes went bright, changing her entire face, and right then was when Rick could see that yeah, she was as gone for him as he was for her.

Rick drove the whole way to school with the hand not on the steering wheel holding hers. By the end of the day Rick was anxious as fuck while he waited for Lori to come out of her last class. The necklace was in a little silver box, held closed with a white ribbon tied around it and fluffed up into a bow. The simple box felt like it was searing a red-hot hole straight through the pocket of his jeans right to his thigh. He was sweating bullets. He didn’t know if it would be too much, they’d only been dating for a few months and yeah there was some kissing and heavy petting but this was _Jewelry_ and jewelry meant real commitment and it was so… _adult_ , and Rick wasn’t ready. _What was he thinking? This was going to blow up in his face, Lori’s going to see that box and run screaming. He wasn’t mature enough for this, he still calls his mama mommy for Christ sake! Is it getting hot? It’s getting hot. Fuck, smells like flesh cooking. Shit. Shit, shit, shit._

But then Lori came out those double doors beaming at him, and he plastered on a too wide smile in response as she bounced into his arms. When they got back to Lori’s house she invited Rick in reassuring him not to worry, that her parents wouldn’t be home for hours. It was when they got to her bedroom that he nervously fumbled with the box in his pocket and presented it to her. He can’t even remember what he said to her but it must have been good enough because between one blink and the next she was in his arms again, squeezing him tight mumbling, _Thank you Rick, it’s beautiful,_ over and over into his neck. When they finally released each other from their tight embrace, Lori took Rick’s hand and gently placed the necklace into it before she turned, softly sweeping her hair up and to the side, presenting him with her long, bare, pale neck. 

That afternoon Rick and Lori made love for the first time.

Things were good for a while after that. They only had sex a handful of times over the last two years, mostly at each other’s houses and only when they knew for sure one or the other’s parents wouldn’t be home anytime soon. They still went on dates but not as many as in the beginning. They argued. They argued more once senior year started and Lori kept trying to get Rick to choose the same schools she wanted. Big universities down in Georgia that thrived on the backs of their rich alma mater. Rick thought it was all normal relationship stuff, stuff that happened when you were going through one of the most difficult transformations in your life with someone in the same boat. No big deal right?

But then Lori started getting violently ill before school. He’d go pick her up and right before they’d leave she’d start to get pale and then next thing he knew Lori’s book bag would be on the floor and she’s running to the closest bathroom, emptying out her stomach right into the toilet. This went on for a week. A week of Rick holding Lori’s hair out of her face as she cried and gagged, hand rubbing her back in a soothing manner as nothing but bile came out.

After that things got weird between them. Rick would still pick Lori up and take her home but the rides were now quiet in a tense sort of way. Sometimes Rick would catch Lori at the corner of his eye, looking at him oddly, as if she were debating with herself about something she wanted to say to him, making a decision and then losing her resolve. But last Friday when Rick went to pick up Lori and found nothing but an empty house and no cars in her family’s driveway he knew he had to be the one to breach the growing chasm between them. But every time Rick tried Lori would find some way to shut him down.

_God give me strength._

Between his parents breathing down his neck about his future and an irate Lori, Rick wasn’t ready for tomorrow. When Rick shifted from his dark reverie he turned and squinted down at the clock on his nightstand. It read 12:30am in bright red LED light. He sighed again, hand squeezing the bridge of his nose, rubbing the ache of reading small print out of his eyes before he shut his pre-calc textbook and dropped it softly onto his floor. He pulled the comforter from the bottom of his bed around him before he reached over and clicked off the soft glow of his lamp.

Rick rolled onto his side, one hand under his pillow, the other lying next to his face, staring sightlessly out of his window at the dark grass of their front yard. No cars passed. The only noise he could hear were the sounds of cicadas and the feint noises of the neighborhood pets. Rick fell asleep to the sound of old Widow Hutcherson’s dog barking down the street.

His dreams were hollow that night.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> So basically this is my response to last weeks episode 6x10.  
>  ****** spoilers ahead for the episode and some of my plot (maybe) ******  
>  I was all hyped up about richonne but all I could think was, _what about daryl??_ That supply run was hilarious, and he basically hand fed Rick chocolate and that whole song thing between them? Loved all of it. But the beginning of that episode, Michonne so comfortable around her boys, Carl basically saying "you're amazing, alpha mom status, i'd take your walking corpse down any day," was beautiful. And then it just snowballed from there. I wanted to do an apocalyptic-au where we watch Rick and Michonne pine for a obstinate Daryl, a Daryl whose ready to run, and richonne's like fuck that, and the rixonne begins, but that shit had way to much baggage and I haven't read all the comics yet so anything related to Negan, Jesus, and their groups respectfully would have been a major stumbling block for me and i just wanted to throw something fresh out there. 
> 
> So I decided to do that same concept but in a different au. Message me and I'll explain some more. Prob shouldn't have posted this chapter anyway, chapter 2 is like, *snorts* 5 sentences right now? Oh well. Later xx.


End file.
